What is the cause of contrails on jets?

Question

Speed, altitude, tepmrature or what?

Answer 1

its chemtrails I tell ya and thats how they control the weather

Answer 2

Contrails are caused by condensation of the water content in the exhaust emitted by jet engines.

Contrails are formed when aircraft fly above the mintra level, an altitude at which point water freezes.

Speed has nothing to do with contrails. Altitude (because the higher we go the lower the temperature) plays a major role. The critical factor is the temperature, which causes the vapour to crystallise.

Answer 3

It is water vapor or water vapor converted to ice crystals.

Contrails are only created from the engines (usually turbine but yes WWII bombers flew so high their engines did this as well). It happens. The process happens when the engine exhaust increases the water content in the air past the saturation point (pretty easy at high altitude). This turns to ice crystals at such low temperatures that is why the really high ones tend to stick around a long time and sometimes catalyze a cloud.

Why some do and some don't? A bunch of reasons:
- Different altitude (hard to judge when you are on the ground).
- Different exhaust temperatures
- High by-pass or low by-pass engine (low by-pass will create larger/longer contrails)

Answer 4

The contrail is water vapor that is produced when the jet fuel is burned, the word is a contraction of condensation and trail. At high altitudes the air is below the freezing point of water and the water vapor in the exhaust gasses freezes and forms the clouds that we call contrails.

Answer 5

The condensation trail left behind jet aircrafts are called contrails. Contrails form when hot humid air from jet exhaust mixes with colder environmental air encountered mainly at higher altitudes and turns to steam.

Answer 6

Contrails is short for condensation trail. It's caused by the hot exhaust gasses hitting the cold atmosphere at high altitudes. Condensation forms leaving the cloud behind as it flies.

Answer 7

Condensation caused by the heat of the jet engine and high altitude. Water turns to vapor quite easily at high altitude. That's why you get dehydrated on airplanes easily. Everyone does, even in a pressurized cabin.

Answer 8

Contrails are condensed water vapor, formed from the hot exhaust gases of the jet engine coming in contact with cold moisture in the atmosphere.

Answer 9

Contrails are caused by all of the above: Speed, altitude, temperature, and barometric pressure.

Answer 10

Not only jets produce contrails.
Any combustion engine produces water vapor in its exhaust.
At high altitude it is cold enough to freeze this vapor into visible ice crystals if the humidity is high enough so that the cooling droplets don't evaporate before they freeze.
A low temp. high humidity layer will form contrails.

Answer 11

Some of the exhaust gasses from a jet are water vapor. At very high altitudes, say above 25,000 feet or so, the air is so cold that this water vapor immediately turns to tiny ice crystals. (Those feathery clouds called 'cirrus' clouds are made of ice crystals.) The ice crystals are very tiny and very sparse in the air, like a cloud, but they reflect light and are easy to see, especially against a plain blue sky.